Obama’s Electronic Medical Records Scam

Here’s more evidence that government “cures” are inevitably worse than the “diseases” they seek to wipe out. Buried in the trillion-dollar stimulus law of 2009 was an electronic medical records “incentive” program. Like most of President Obama’s health care rules, this top-down electronic record-sharing scheme is a big fat bust.

Oversight is lax. Cronyism is rife. The job-killing and privacy-undermining consequences have only just begun.

The program was originally sold as a cost-saving measure. In theory, modernizing record-collection is a good idea, and many private health care providers have already made the change. But as with many government “incentive” programs, the EMR bribe is a tax-subsidized, one-size-fits-all mandate. This one pressures health care professionals and hospitals across the country into radically federalizing their patient data and opening up medical information to untold abuse. Penalties kick in for any provider that hasn’t switched over by 2014.

So, what’s it to you? Well, $4 billion has already gone out to 82,535 professionals and 1,474 hospitals, and a total of $6 billion will be doled out by 2016. But the feds’ reckless profligacy, neglect and favoritism have done more harm than good.

Don’t take my word for it. A recent report released by the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General acknowledged that the incentive system is “vulnerable to paying incentives to professionals and hospitals that do not fully meet” the program’s quality assurance requirements. The federal health bureaucracy “has not implemented strong prepayment safeguards, and its ability to safeguard incentive payments postpayment is also limited,” the IG concluded.

Comments

I find it rather a co-incidence that right after Obamacare has started to be implemented, our cell phone numbers became public record and since then my phone has not quit ringing with deals from Oriental speaking people in large telemarketing rooms (you can hear the echo in the background of others talking) wanting to sell me something to do with Medical coverage. I couldn’t understand much more than that…Ended up telling the caller that if he called me one more time I was turning them in for Harrassment after 4 calls in one week…I also told him if he wanted to sell anything to English speaking people he should learn the language better! But for REAL…What in the HECK are Oriental people calling me to sell me Medical ANYTHING? We have millions of people out of work!!!! I am so sick of the way our Govt. is doing things!! I do NOT want my medical records shared with the whole country!